The Devil Is In the Detail

Thursday, January 22, 2015

The American view of law and government
is summarized in our founding document, the Declaration of Independence, by
these three things:

There is a God.

Our rights come
from God, not government.

Government's
primary role is to preserve and protect those God-given rights.

So - what will the Supreme Court Case arguing
over same-sex marriage really be about?

Thirty-one U.S. state constitutional
amendments banning legal recognition of same-sex unions have been adopted. Of
these, only a handful declare same-sex marriage unconstitutional in their state.
In virtually none of the thirty-one US states, are any same-sex couples
penalized, prosecuted, fined or put in jail; or given any other form of penalty
whatsoever. That would never happen. In fact, virtually all of the states (and
federal law for that matter), specifically protect homosexuals from any form of
discrimination with regard to employment, access to public schools and other
services that are provided by the government. No one - I repeat no on - is
allowed to legally get away with discriminating against homosexuals. And those
of us who are believers and advocates for the spirit of our laws - to “Live
and Let Live” - would defend each homosexual’s right to choose to live
their life as they wish; as long as they are not forcing others to violate
their own beliefs, or trampling on the specifically and constitutionally
enumerated rights of individuals.

At our core we are a good and moral
country, and we do not want people to be harmed, marginalized, discriminated
against or persecuted in any way. Any individuals who have displayed in their
behavior otherwise are not living in a spirit of harmony with “The American
Way”.

The various state constitutional amendments
and laws are not designed to try to force
any individual to change their viewpoint, their belief system or their way of
life. Nor are they designed to harm or discriminate against anyone. They
are specifically designed to allow same-sex couples to continue to live in
freedom, while at the same time preventing groups that seek to redefine who we
are as a nation and as a people from doing so. These groups seek to force their
beliefs on us by the rule of law.

The point, the goal and spirit of our
basic laws is to “Live and Let Live”. That is the essence of liberty.

The spirit that exists within our laws, and within our founding documents and Constitution, is the idea that
people possess a free will and should be free to live their lives; that is to
“pursue happiness” however they see fit. Just as long as it does not harm
others in any personal or physical way; as long as it does not violate them of
their person or property rights, AND specifically it does not violate the enumerated
rights within the United States Constitution – which include protected
religious freedom.

It is no coincidence that the founders
used the very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution to address these rights
- which include freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and freedom of
speech; which has always been interpreted as freedom of conscience.

From a commonsense standpoint; how does
anyone, anywhere - whether that be individuals, elected officials, bureaucrats
- and yes, Supreme Court justices - somehow think that they can use the power
of law and government to force others to change their beliefs? It is a
ridiculous premise. Nobody changes their beliefs because some government
official, or new law mandates they must.

So you see, at its core, the Supreme
Court argument has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not two people of
the same gender who care about each other can live together like heterosexuals
can. They absolutely can! There is no one in prison today, or faced with some punishment,
because they violated their state's amendment defining marriage as a man and a
woman.

The argument being made by those who
want to force people and states to redefine marriage - IS about "you will
be made to care." And - if you don't want to care, we will use the coercive
power of government to force you to care. Even if it means forcing you to
validate what your conscience and/or religion teaches is immoral or outside of
the natural order.

We have experienced numerous and
unprecedented assaults on religious liberty in recent times. Like the black
fire chief of Atlanta, who used to serve in the Obama administration, and lost
his job because he wrote a book on his personal time advocating the
Bible's views on sexuality. Even though an investigation found no evidence he
was discriminating against anyone who disagreed with his views, he was fired anyway for being a Christian.

An award-winning newspaper editor lost his job for being a Christian. Simply because he disagreed with the so-called
"Queen James Bible" which revises the Scriptures to accept
homosexuality. The editor did not write the article in a newspaper – he wrote
it on his personal blog.

Funny - it seems as if it is the Left's
business to stick their nose into what Christians do with their private time.
Yet these same folks on the left most often tell others that what they do with their private time is no
one’s business. That surely seems like hypocrisy to me.

I am guessing that many of you are
already aware of some of the more prominent cases of discrimination against,
and persecution of Christians right here in US of A! Some of the more obvious
ones are the family-owned bakery that was sued and put out of business because
they would not bake cupcakes or a wedding cake celebrating a same-sex marriage.
A photography business that was fined for refusing to provide photography
services for a same-sex wedding couple.

In virtually every one of these cases
the owners of the businesses even offered to refer the same-sex customers to
other businesses who would fulfill their request at an equal or lesser cost.
These business owners did not want the same-sex couples to be denied the
services they sought; they merely didn’t want to provide the services
themselves out of a moral or ‘rights of conscience’ objection. But out of
respect, each was willing to make sure that another service provider would
fulfill the needs of the same-sex couple at a fair market price.

So much for mutual respect; so much for
live and let live.

Here are a few more that didn’t get as
much attention in the media.

·Under Barack
Obama, The Internal Revenue Service launched a widespread series of attacks on
Christian ministries and pro-life groups—all deemed enemies of the Obama
administration. The IRS even set its sights on one of the most famous
evangelical Christians in the world: America’s pastor, Billy Graham.

·A North Carolina
pastor was fired from his duties as honorary chaplain of the state House of
Representatives after invoking the name of Jesus.

·Senior citizens
living in a center in Georgia were told they could no longer pray over their
meals.

·A federal judge
ordered a Texas school district to prohibit public prayer at the Medina Valley
Independent school District graduation ceremony.

·Massachusetts
eight-year-old boy who was sent home from school and ordered to undergo
psychiatric evaluation after he drew a picture of Jesus on a cross.

·A professor at
the University of Kentucky who applied for a job directing the university’s
observatory but was turned down after the hiring committee found out he was a
Christian.

·Bibles and other
religious materials that were briefly banned from Walter Reed Medical Center.

·A New York public school teacher who was ordered
to remove inspirational Bible verses from her classroom. The teacher was also
told to remove a quote from former Pres. Ronald Reagan. Ironically, the quote
read, “If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a
nation gone under”.

·A widow who lives
in a Minnesota apartment complex funded by the Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) was told she could not pray, read her Bible, or have a
private discussion of any religious nature in the common area of the complex. A
social worker told her that the apartment complex receives funding from the
federal government and therefore she did NOT have a first amendment right
because HUD does not allow religious discussions in public areas of the complex.

·Officials at
Rollins College in Florida ordered a group of students to shut down a Bible
study they were holding in the privacy
of a dorm room because, they said, it violated the schools rules. A
resident Hall assistant entered the dorm room during the middle of the study
and asked the student who was leading the group to step outside. He was told
there were no longer allowed to hold a Bible study inside the dorm room, even
with the express consent of the individual students, because InterVarsity (a Christian
college organization), was no longer registered or accepted as an official
student group on campus. It did not matter that they were individuals sharing a
Bible study in the privacy of a person’s dorm room.

·For more than
seven years pastor Terry Sartain ministered to police officers and their
families in Charlotte North Carolina. Whenever the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police
Department invited him to deliver an invocation he prayed “in the name of Jesus”.
But not anymore, volunteer chaplains in the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police
Department were told they were no longer allowed to invoke the name of Jesus in
prayers at any public events or on government property.

·In 2011 and
evangelical Christian church was told by New York City officials it could no longer
rent a community room at a federally funding housing project named after
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. An attorney representing the Bronx Bible
Church of the congregation was notified that Christmas day would be the last
day the church could worship at the housing project.

·The family of a
Colorado preacher’s wife was told by the director of the city owned Cemetery that
he refused to carve on her gravestone the name of Jesus because it might offend
people.

·A Florida-based
ministry that has fed the poor for three decades was told by the state
agricultural department they would no longer be allowed to receive USDA foods
unless they removed from their facility any portraits of Christ, the Ten
Commandments and a banner that reads “Jesus is Lord”. They were also ordered to
stop giving out Bibles.

·Missouri Baptist
have been gathering on the river banks of the Missouri River on Sunday
afternoon baptisms for over 100 years. New believers are led to the water,
draped in white robes as a choir sings “Shall We Gather at the River.” But now
the long cherished tradition of taking the plunge has been drawn into a
controversy with the federal government when the National Park Service band
baptism in rivers and bodies of water that are within national parks.

·A flower bed
shaped like a cross in a Columbus Georgia Park was mowed down and removed after
a non-Christian raised concerns with the city’s leadership. The city’s mayor
determine the cross violated the law and ordered it to be removed.

·A family-owned diner in Pennsylvania was investigated
for discrimination after offering a 10% discount for diners who present a church bulletin on Sundays. The restaurant owners were served with a 16 page
complaint from the state of Pennsylvania accusing them of discrimination.

·The city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a
group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender
identity or Annise Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor. And those
ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court.

I could go on and on. There are least
another dozen examples that I could share from the last six years alone.

So, is this honestly about some sort of
immoral or unethical discrimination toward same-sex couples? I honestly don’t
think so. At its core, this case is about an attack on religious liberty and an
attack on the American way of life that has existed since our founding.

This case is
also about -is it right, healthy or wise for our nation to
redefine what marriage is. I for one, certainly do not believe that it is the
role of government to be defining what marriage is. Most importantly, it is not
the job of government to mandate by law what people must believe or not believe.
That is an idea that is disconnected from reality, and ignore the nature of
human thought and free will.

Footnote
on Where Court Arguments May Lead

Loving v. Virginia and other important freedom to marry cases have
affirmed some constitutional guarantees, the very guarantees nearly 60 state
and federal courts have invoked in the waves of rulings in favor of the
exclusion of gay couples from marriage.

The problem is that Loving v. Virginia was
about making sure states could not ban interracial marriage. Why is this a
problem? Because we know from over 100 years of hard science that the racial
ethnicity, or the color of a person’s skin, is completely driven by biology and
genetics. The new revolutions and discoveries from genetic science proves what
we’ve already known for a thousand years; the discriminating against someone
for their skin color is ridiculous because they were born that way. On the other
hand, these great achievements in genetic science have nearly completely proven
that there is no “gay gene”. In fact one of the most recent studies released in
February 2014, and completed in conjunction with a handful of cooperating
universities; a study that took more than a decade to achieve - clearly shows
that there is no genetic contributor to a propensity for same-sex attraction.
Combining this with the behavioral sciences that have been used to research and
help better understand people with same-sex attraction - it is a safe
conclusion that same-sex attraction is more an outcome of nurture then it is
nature.

The question is, will the 50 to 100
years of biological and genetic science and its results be permitted within the
discussion and the arguments in the courtroom. I certainly think it should.

So at its core, this case is not just
about the American way of life and defending religious freedom, it is certainly about
defining what a “civil right” actually is. I personally know several black Americans
who gave their all to fight for their rights, and to get civil rights legislation
passed in the 1960’s. These Americans take issue with the idea that same-sex attraction and
the color of someone’s skin are on par and considered a civil right. They object because a Black American is born black; while there is no real evidence that a gay American is born same-sex attracted.

If the core facts of biology and genetics,
and the definition of civil rights are not considered within this case - I fear
that very little will be resolved for the American people.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

My heart is literally grieved as I watch events unfold in
Ferguson MO. I have an all too familiar sick feeling in the pit of my stomach – because the images
on TV bring back memories of the Los Angeles Riots; which I personally experienced in
1992.

Looter running past building that was burned by rioters - LA Riots, April 1992

The LA Riots broke out when the mostly white officers (and
at least one black officer) were videotaped beating Rodney King, a Black-American man, following a high-speed police pursuit. As a citizen
living in Southern California, and working in and around downtown Los Angeles
as an employee for the Los Angeles Times; these events had a profound and
deeply troubling effect on me.

The differences in the two events are clear. The evidence in
the Rodney King case clearly showed that the police went too far in their
continual beating of King after he was subdued and on the ground. I,
along with many of my friends and family, were deeply disturbed when the police
officers in the Rodney King Beating Case were acquitted. The physical and
forensic evidence in the Rodney King case left many of us, myself included,
feeling that justice was not served. The apparent evidence in the Ferguson event,
does support a case that officer Wilson had to defend himself, and was legally permitted to do so.

The heartbreaking and mind boggling facts, is that anyone
would use either of these cases to incite riots – to loot, burn and destroy their
own communities.

Rebuilding Ferguson? Los Angeles is a Good Historical Indicator.

Despite the fact that it was anger toward whites and the
police that erupted in Los Angeles in 1992, it was primarily Korean owned local business
that were destroyed, along with various national chains and locally owned
franchise businesses. Twenty-plus years later; the neighborhood has simply never recovered,
and the local residents remain under-served by the local businesses, and schools
they need.

Korean Business Owner Protecting His Business from Rioters - LA, April 1992

In
LA, after three days of arson and looting, 3,767 buildings were burned with
over $1 billion in property damage. Donations were given to help with food and
medicine and the office of State Senator Diane E. Watson provided shovels and
brooms as racially mixed volunteers from all over the community helped clean-up.
13,000 police and troops patrolled the area protecting gas stations and food
stores that were not affected by the looting, which were able to reopen along
with other areas such as the Universal Studios tour, dance halls, and bars.

Many
organizations stepped forward to rebuild Los Angeles; South Central's Operation
Hope and Koreatown's Saigu and KCCD (Korean Churches for Community
Development), all raised millions to repair destruction and improve economic
development. President George H.W. Bush signed a declaration of disaster; which
activated Federal relief efforts for the victims of the looting and arson which
included grants and low-cost loans to cover their property losses. The Rebuild
LA program promised $6 billion in private investment to create 74,000 jobs;
which unfortunately never came to fruition.

The majority of the local stores were never rebuilt because, even though store
owners had great desire to rebuild, they had trouble getting loans; business
owners and investors were naturally discouraged in rebuilding and planting
businesses because they considered the risk in the local community too high. So
of course this lack of growth prevented increased employment; and the
circumstances for the local resident just became worse. Few of the rebuilding
plans came to be because business investors as well as the community members
rejected South Central L.A.

The members of any community, Ferguson or otherwise, do
themselves no favors by burning and destroying the local businesses that
provide them services and jobs. One year after the LA Riots fewer than one in four
damaged or destroyed businesses reopened, according to the survey conducted by
the Korean-American Inter-Agency Council. According to a Los Angeles Times
survey conducted eleven months after the riots, almost 40% of Korean-Americans
said they were thinking of leaving Los Angeles.

The bottom line – the events in Ferguson today have stirred
up grief and even the feelings of fear that I experienced living in Los Angeles
in 1992. The racial hatred in the community was completely palpable. Nothing
can or will ever excuse such anarchy and the personal actions of destruction and violence. The rioters are
simply not justified; which is something that few elected officials, including President Obama have the courage to emphasis.

A QuikTrip Convenience Store in Ferguson - Franchise says they will not risk reopening.QuikTrip closed 4 local area stores immediately after the recent riots in Ferguson, MO

Twenty years later; much of the immediate community where
the LA Riots occurred is far worse off now than it was then. The local poverty
is worse, the schools are worse, and the local residents remain under-served - fewer business means fewer jobs and less access to groceries, gas stations, physicians and other essential services.
The rioters in Ferguson will most likely create the same outcome for the local
community they are today destroying physically. Corporations, private investors and entrepreneurs
will not risk future investment in Ferguson area businesses.

This is just truly sad. The situation, poverty and other problems that this particular community in Ferguson MO has been dealing with for years - will now get worse with very little hope of improvement.

The hate filled-rioters are in the process of
creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.

A cop may use lethal force when he or she “reasonably
believes that the action is in defense of human life, including the officer's
own life” and in the Ferguson incident, that’s precisely what happened

Video - President Obama gives lip service to rioters while he
lectures local law enforcement to be careful in how they treat the local
Ferguson community. Lots of talk about hurt feelings, but no emphasis on
personal responsibility to themselves and their community.